The present invention relates to amusement or educational devices allowing users to build various relationships by selecting from a set of predefined elements and, more particularly, to a hand-held, phrase-composing device allowing users to construct fortunes, words, sentences, mathematical equations, or other relationships by selectively interlocking adjacent collars to align word, mathematical, sentence or other appropriate elements disposed around the collars.
Educational and amusement devices including rotatable elements that allow users to construct words, sentences, mathematical equations and other relationships are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,411,717 issued to Fay et al teaches an educational device comprising a plurality of adjacent, straight-edged rings disposed around a cylinder. Each ring includes letters disposed around its circumference. A user can adjust the rings relative to one another to spell words. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 2,476,850 issued to Bergman describes an educational device comprising rotatable elements, each including elements of mathematical equations, to facilitate learning of basic arithmetic operations. U.S. Pat. No. 2,608,006 issued to Mulvihill discloses an educational toy comprising a cylinder and a rotatable cap disposed around the end of the cylinder. The cylinder and the cap have juxtaposed letters or numbers which may be aligned to form words or numbers. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,978 issued to Breslow teaches an amusement device facilitating spelling education comprising rotatable, letter-bearing elements disposed around a common shaft. U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,992 issued to Danino et al. provides a puzzle-type game comprising a plurality of shapes rotatably attached to one another in a series, wherein each shape includes indicia representing elements of a multi-element relationship. To solve the puzzle, the user rotates the shapes relative to one another until all indicia, when aligned, express a valid multi-element relationship.
Fortune telling games and devices are also known. Many prior art fortune telling devices rely on the user to ask a specific question, to roll dice, and/or to draw a card from a stack. For example, prior art fortune telling devices include the well-known eight-ball including a multi-faceted die visible through an opening in the eight-ball. The die includes small fortunes on each face of the die that appear after the user shakes the device. The fortunes that result are usually limited to a small handful of short responses that are often quite vague and require the user to interpret or apply the message to his or her situation. The interaction required to elicit the fortune leaves little room for imagination or variety, or much sense of interactive input and self-determination. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 3,970,315 issued to Redner teaches a fortune telling game comprising a game board including written intelligence and indexing cards that determine the resulting fortunes that users may interpret.
While the amusement and educational devices discussed above fulfill their respective objectives, the prior art does not disclose or suggest a phrase-composing device including interlocking collars that allow users to construct fortunes, words, sentences, equations, or other relationships by selectively interlocking adjacent collars in various possible positions to align word, equation, or sentence elements disposed around the collars. In addition, the prior art does not disclose or suggest a fortune-composing device that allows users to compose fortunes by selectively combining multi-word sentence fragments disposed around the circumference of interlocking collars.
The present invention provides an amusement or educational device comprising a plurality of interlocking collars slidable along and rotatable about a common shaft, and bearing elements of a multi-element relationship about their circumferences. In one embodiment, the collars are configured to allow users to construct fortunes, words, sentences, equations, or other relationships by selectively interlocking adjacent collars to align word, mathematical, sentence or other appropriate elements disposed around the collars. In one embodiment, the present invention provides a fortune-telling or entertainment device allowing users to compose fortunes or other relationships by selectively combining multi-word sentence fragments disposed around the circumference of interlocking collars.